The arrival of a certain virus made us spend a lot more time at home… and that means that adult content consumption skyrocketed. The main platforms reduce the search process to a couple of taps, and for some people out there, it’s becoming a problem. Quitting those sites for weeks may seem easy at first, but in practice, most people don’t make it past a few days. Why? To know the answer, you need to know what happens to your brain when you stop watching porn…
How much porn do we consume?
The latest statistics shared by Pornhub confirm that 130 million users visit the platform daily. Its Insights blog (SFW, but be careful) is full of information on popular searches, trends, activity peaks, and much more. For example, 84 percent of all its traffic arrives through mobile devices, and in some regions it already exceeds 90 percent.
In other words… we watch a lot of porn. And some people admit that they watch a lot of porn, but they also discover that it is very complicated to quit. In fact, more than 80 percent of those who try fail completely, and return to their favorite platforms in less than a week. The reason is simple: our body doesn’t easily give up things that bring it pleasure. So, would you like to know what happens to your brain when you stop watching porn?
What happens to our brain when we stop watching porn?
The video from AsapSCIENCE explains that in the first 24 hours no negative changes are recorded, but quite the opposite: the person in question usually feels good and is excited about this new challenge. However... everything turns upside down from the second day. Let’s pause here.
To obtain data, experts in neurophysiology rely on people who self-diagnose with “problematic pornography use”, and one of the most interesting details is that it has no direct relationship with the amount of porn consumed, but rather with the negative effects it is having on their lives.
Some studies suggest that daily porn consumption among men jumped from 13 to 39 percent in the last ten years, but the percentage of problematic use remains static at 6 percent. That limits the amount of information available, but it still gives us a more solid idea about its impact.
Day 2 and beyond
Back to the second day, the main symptoms are anxiety, insomnia, concentration problems, and the desire to watch porn at least three times a day. Here neuroplasticity comes into play: the brain changes physically and responds to our behavior.
The most important alteration associated with porn consumption is in the ventral striatum, which plays a fundamental role in the reward system. The sense of novelty added to sex scenes and the search itself on the sites keeps dopamine levels very high, modifying the ventral striatum.
Between days 4 and 7 is when most people return to watching porn, and they cite anxiety as the central reason. People with problematic porn use say they watch it to relieve their anxiety... however, they admit that in practice that doesn’t work so well.
Furthermore, the fact of desiring porn does not mean they enjoy it more compared to other control groups. That desire ends up turning porn into a “supernormal stimulus”, amplifying certain qualities that make it more striking than the real version.
From day 14 onward, watching porn feels again like a new and intense experience. The effect of porn on dopamine levels makes it difficult to delay gratification in all aspects of our lives, but beyond that day 14, people can perform more complex tasks and defer their rewards with greater ease.
After crossing the day 30 mark, improvements in concentration and the development of clearer thoughts arise, and the return to a baseline state occurs at 90 days after having stopped consuming porn. Three. Months.
